Warning: The features and instructions outlined in the document are intended for use by advanced Aeries users who have access to the SQL database. Should you wish to enable these features for your district, please contact your district Aeries Administrator.

Items in the Aeries Navigation tree (pages and reports) can be customized with the following features:

• Adding new custom links to the navigation tree which can point to any URL
• Modifying the title of any existing item in the navigation tree
• Hiding any existing item in the navigation tree
• New categories can be created containing items which are already displayed in other categories
• Attributes can be set to allow displaying of navigation items to only certain users based on school, security area, and other criteria.
• Custom URLs can include dynamic placeholders to include values for the current student from any student-related table or the current user from a session variable
• Navigation for the Parent and Student Portal can also be modified

Note: Making any changes to the navigation via these methods may require waiting up to 5 minutes for the server cache to refresh

Care should be taken when altering the navigation tree. Keep in mind that altering attributes such as school codes or security groups associated with existing pages does not alter the underlying security of that page. For example, if a user normally has access to the Contacts page, and you decide to hide this page from the navigation, then that user still has access to that report if they have the URL bookmarked or in their Favorites. Hiding items from the navigation should not be done in lieu of proper security permissions.

Sorting of custom navigation items is done similarly to custom tables. New navigation items appear at the bottom of the specified categories in alphabetical order with other new items. Additional sorting options may be added in the future.

Navigation customization also are available for parents and students.

Customizing the navigation is accomplished by editing the NAV table in SQL. One way to accomplish this is by right-clicking on the table in SQL Server Management Studio and choosing Edit Top 200 Rows from the Menu.

The following fields are available within the NAV table:

• [SC] - School Code. This specifies the school where this link displays. Enter 0 to display to all schools (including the district level).
• [TYP] - Type. Valid values are "R" for Reports/View All Reports, "P" for Pages/View All Forms, or "S" for Student/Parent Portal.
• [CAT] - Category. Enter the category in which to display. For example "Student Data". This follows multiple grandchildren down if you add pipe separated categories such as "Supplemental Attendance|Configurations". New categories or sub-categories may also be created here. For example "District Tools|Lookups" 
  • Note: For Reports and the Parent portal only a single Category can be used as they do not support multiple nested categories. For example a new report might be CAT = 'Custom' and NM = 'New Report'
• [NM] - Name. This is the title of the link, and what is displayed to end users in the navigation as a page or report.
• [URL] - The URL
  • URL can contain "Mail Merge" items within brackets [ ]. Any student related field can be used and always reflects the current student you are on. Example: setting a URL of "https://yourwebsite.com/?q=[STU].[FN]" results in https://yourwebsite.com/?q=Pete. 
    • Other tables besides STU may also be specified. 
    • Any custom URL goes through a redirect page that checks for user logged in and URL is valid, then redirects.
  • The URL may be any existing Aeries page, i.e. "Supplemental.aspx", or any external url beginning with http://, https://, mailto:, javascript:, etc. Dynamic mail-merge fields cannot be used with Javascript URLs.
    • To rename an existing page on the navigation, use a relative path name.  To create a custom entry on the navigation, use the full URL. 
  • This may be a URL to a custom report designed with SQL Server Reporting Services
  • Use caution when including quotes in the URL since the link might be wrapped in double quotes when rendered to the page. 
  • Session Variables can also be specified in the URL instead of a table/field value. Here are some example session variables that may be useful:
    • [Session].[SC] - current student's school code
    • [Session].[SN] - current student's student number
    • [Session].[Connection_Database] - database name
    • [Session].[Connection_Server] - server name
    • [Session].[Connection_DatabaseGroup] - current database group (from Aeries connections config)
    • [Session].[Connection_DatabaseYear] - current database year (from Aeries connections config)
    • [Session].[DateCreated] - date the session was created
    • [Session].[IPAddress] - IP address (as seen by the web server)
    • [Session].[LastPageHit] - last page hit date/timestamp
    • [Session].[SchoolCode] - currently logged in school
    • [Session].[UID] - current user's UID value from the UGN table
    • [Session].[UserName] - current username
    • [Session].[Language] - the language selected by the parent or student when logging into the parent portal (i.e. 00 for English, 01 for Spanish, etc.)
• [DAC] - Data Content. This may be a comma separated list of security areas the link should apply to. For example "ATT" or "STU,IDN". Multiple security areas are separated by commas. Use "ADMIN" to display to admin type accounts only.
• [DAP] - Data Permissions. Links are displayed to users who have these permissions to the Data Content (DAC) areas. Valid values are "Read", "Update", "Insert", "Delete", "MassUpdate", or  "Admin" (which means Administer).
• [MTD] - Metadata. This can be some additional text used for filtering pages.
• [NWN] - New Window. Valid values are 'Y' or 'N'.
• [TCR] - Teacher. Valid values are Y' or 'N' or blank ' '. Behavior is different depending on if the link is a page or report:
  • For Pages: 'Y' = shows only to teachers and does not show to any other type of user,'N' = do not show to teachers, Blank = show to all
  • For Reports: 'Y' = show to teachers and everyone else.  'N' or Blank = Shows to everyone except teachers
• [DST] - District. Valid values are 'Y' or 'N' or blank. 'N' = hides from District level, 'Y' - show at District Level, Blank = show to all
• [SCT] - School Type. Valid values are "Elementary" (which includes Elem W/ MST), "Secondary", "School" (to only show at the school level), or "District" (to only show at district level). Blank shows to all school types.
• [ATT] - Attendance Type. Valid Values are "Daily" or "Period". Blank shows for all attendance types.
• [SSV] - Session Variable. Show only to session variables matching this criteria. See AeriesNavigation.config for examples.
• [HID] - Hide. This is used to hide an existing page. To hide an existing page, the URL must be the URL used in Aeries. Example: Query.aspx. Valid values are 'Y' = Hide the page in navigation. Blank or 'N' = Don't hide. 
  • Note: Category must be specified to use the hide feature. Since the name field is not applicable when hiding, that field can be used as a notes field.

Article revision history:

9/28/2018 - Added information related to modifying navigation for parents/students (new feature), and clarified that javascript links do not allow for mail-merge fields. Also added another session example.

11/2/2018 - Corrected SC, DST, and SCT information regarding hiding items at school and/or district level.